The Great Orme Kashmiri Goats

The
first intimation of Capra Markhor is the rank odour. It is strong, musty
and compelling. Sometimes he can be found wandering the wooded hillside.
There is a flash of white in the undergrowth and a head slowly rises from
behind a bramble bush. The eyes regard one with intelligence. The mouth
grins wickedly and two enormous horns curve backwards, almost touching the
nape of his neck. The horns are crenulated, with large ridges unevenly
spaced along their length. A shaggy fringe covers his forehead and his
beard grows long. Soon, others of his kind can be seen around him in the
undergrowth, and it becomes apparent that there are seven or eight
animals.

These are the Great Orme Kashmiri goats,
whose ancestors once roamed the mountains of Northern India. The creatures
eat with discrimination. Delicately nibbling the juiciest berries, whilst
carefully avoiding the thorns. At this season, it is an all male club. It
is high summer. The entire herd is said to be about 60 strong, including
other full grown billies, young billies, nannies and kids. For most of the
year, the nannies browse on the other side of the mountain, with last
year's young, whilst the mature and immature billies roam in small groups
away from the females. They will not mix until the Autumn rut. Then, the
nannies will be attracted by the odour exuded from the glands behind the
horns of the large males. When it is mixed with the scent of urine, with
which the billies anoint
themselves, the nannies in season find it hard to resist its heady scent.
At this time, there is much aggressive display. Horns clash and heads are
thrown back with lips curled to display strong yellow teeth.

The goats tend to mate around October,
and the kids are sometimes born as early as February. At parturition, the
pregnant nannies seek solitude to drop their kids, often on some
inaccessible ledge. Quite soon after birth, the nanny will leave her kid
and wander off to feed, returning regularly to suckle it. The kids are
generally quite safe at these times. Unfortunately, interference of a
human kind is their chief danger. Passers-by, no doubt well meaning, frequently pick up the kids thinking them
to be abandoned. When this happens, there is virtually no chance of the
nanny accepting back her human- smelling kid, and even if taken into care
by the R.S.P.C.A. they are difficult to feed and more often than not they
do not survive. Therefore, unless a very young kid is in danger from
traffic or obviously injured, it should be left alone. After two or three
weeks, the nannies and kids will rejoin the herd.

All goats have their own peculiarities,
and it is possible to identify individuals. One billy, in particular, is
easily recognisable. He is smaller than the others, and has a longer,
shaggier coat. This goat is an outsider. He is one of three goats
introduced into the herd from Whipsnade Zoo. It was not a very successful
experiment. The first goat died within weeks of arrival. The second
decided that he was probably not a goat, but a sheep. He mixed quite
happily with the flock, until, unfortunately, he fell off a cliff and was
killed. This is very unusual, as goats are extremely sure footed. The
third goat survived, and eventually became accepted by the herd. The Royal
Welsh Fusiliers have obtained most of their regimental goat mascots from Whipsnade stock. Other billies have
dark markings on their faces and all have horns which vary in shape and
size. The horns of the young billies and the nannies are slim and
delicate, curving gently backwards. Several old billies have horns which
are distorted and misshapen, perhaps from past pre-rutting battles. It is
possible to estimate the age of
a billy by the ridges on its horns. Each section represents one year's
growth. Barring accidents, the goats will live for about nine years. In
the nannies, the ridges are less obvious and ageing these animal is not so
easy.

It is often believed that goats will eat
anything. However, they tend to be quite discriminating
as far as diet is concerned, and have definite preferences, such as, in
the case of the Great Orme goats, elder, gorse, hawthorn, bracken,
bramble, ivy, stinging nettles and privet, according to the time of year.
In the Autumn, they will browse on the grass, moving to the slopes where
they can find a plentiful supply. The origin of the Great Orme goats and
the story of their arrival in Britain, is interesting. In the early part
of the last century, Squire Christopher Tower, from Brentwood in Essex,
discovered a large herd which had recently been imported from Kashmir into
France. The idea was to create a profitable woollen industry. Squire Tower
decided to purchase two of these goats, and took them to Weald Park in
Brentwood. The goats flourished, and soon produced kids, from which the
Squire was, eventually, able to manufacture a cashmere shawl. George IV
was highly impressed by this article, and was happy to accept a pair of
the goats presented to him by Squire Tower.

So began the Windsor herd, which
increased rapidly, and in the reign of Queen Victoria, cashmere shawls
became extremely fashionable. It is often said that Queen Victoria was
presented with the goats by the Shah of Persia, and it may be that these
were added to the already existing herd.

Later in the Century, Major General Sir
Savage Mostyn acquired two of the Windsor goats, and took them to the
grounds of Gloddaeth Hall. It is possible, however, that they were
unsuitable as park animals. There is an old Welsh farming practice, known
as "Llwgu'r defaid" (starving the sheep). This was a method
whereby goats were run with the sheep, in the hope of precluding the
latter from straying into dangerous places, where the goats could more
easily forage. Perhaps this may have been the reason why the goats were
transferred to the Great Orme. Certainly, they are frequently to be seen
browsing on extremely narrow ledges, and they climb the steep limestone
cliffs with amazing agility.

The folk lore of goats is interesting
and contradictory. The association with the Devil is well known, as he is
usually depicted with horns and cloven hooves. However, goats were also
thought to bring good luck, especially to farmers. It is still believed by
many that if a goat is put with cattle, the cows will not abort. In the
same way, sheep will be disease free if a goat is allowed to run with the
flock. In ancient Babylon, a goat was sent to die in the desert, in order
that it could carry away the diseases of the people, and the Hebraic scape
goat was driven into the wilderness, taking away the sins of the Jews.

In
many parts of the world, goats are considered the deadly enemies of
snakes. The Kashmir name for the wild goat is "Markhor", which
means "Snake eater". Goats are believed to kill adders by
trampling on them and afterwards eating the remains. But according to the
Book of Genesis, the Devil took on the form of a serpent in the Garden of
Eden, and this would seem to be a contradiction to the "Snake
eater" legend. Certainly there are adders on the Great Orme, but
whether or not the goats keep down their numbers, I do not know. Goats are
thought to be prophets of the weather. It is noticeable that the herd
moves up hill before good weather, and tends to shelter lower down when it
senses a change for the worse. There is much local Great Orme folklore
about goat movements. Early in June, 1993, many inhabitants of Llandudno's
mountain remarked on the unusual presence of a large group of billy goats
on the land near the old Great Orme Post Office. On June 10th, the
heaviest rainfall ever recorded fell upon Llandudno, resulting in the
infamous June floods. Now, the sight of goats in this area causes the
prediction of dire consequences by the local amateur weather
forecasters!

Goats are sociable animals, and not
merely with their own kind. Cats and goats appear to live in harmony
together, and it is believed that horses are content if kept with goats.
There is little doubt that domesticated goats enjoy the company of humans,
but on the Orme, the herd, or "tribe", are shy creatures. They
will not run like sheep, when approached, but usually will walk slowly
away, and are almost impossible
to observe at close quarters. Despite their aloof and retiring nature, the
goats have on occasion aroused much emotion amongst the population of
Llandudno and the surrounding areas. In 1990, a culling exercise resulted
in the re- location of over twenty goats to Hereford and the Island of
Flatholm. The resulting outcry amazed and impressed the Aberconwy Borough
Council. Much adverse criticism resulted over their handling of the
exercise. It emerged that very little was actually known about the
animals, and that a proper scientific study of the herd had never been
carried out.

The leader of the protesters was the
late Audrey Stallard, to whom the welfare of the Orme Goats was paramount.
She worked endlessly to discover what had happened to the animals culled from the herd, and to ensure that nothing
like the clumsy methods used to remove them could happen again. In
consequence, it was decided to bring in a student during the summer of
1992, who would carry out an in depth investigation into all aspects of
the life of the herd. Bryan Pinchen, a young man from Marlborough in
Wiltshire, was selected to carry out the research. At first, Bryan was not
particularly happy at the prospect of the work before him. He had no
experience of wild goats, all his previous projects having been carried
out in the meadows of the sunny South ! However, he soon came to admire
the goats and to recognise them individually. His final report was quite
excellent. In his introduction, Bryan Pinchen wrote as follows.-

'A herd of feral Kashmir
goats has roamed wild for maybe one hundred years over the slopes of the
Great Orme, during this period [there was, in actual fact, a
certain amount of culling carried out by Mostyn Estates in the early
days], they have never really received any attention from the
landowners, or managers, until a small number of the goats were removed in
1990. After this removal operation of 26 goats in February 1990, there
was, as I'm sure you are aware, a public outcry against this act. It was
decided afterwards that a study on the goats should take place to prevent
further removals to take place without good reason. The Great Orme goats
had never been studied before, and it was felt that more information was
needed regarding their health,
reproduction rates, and general population size in relation to the grazing
capacity of the Orme. The study of the goats will now continue for, as
yet, an unknown number of years, but eventually it is hoped that there
will be sufficient information available regarding the herd, so that its
numbers can effectively be managed, and the population can be maintained
at a sensible level in relation to the size of the Great Orme'.

Sadly, after only two years, the funding
for this project was withdrawn. In August, 1996, the newly formed Conwy
Borough Council, which had taken over the responsibilities of the old
Aberconwy Borough Council, suddenly announced that a goat cull, was
planned and that twenty goats would have to be removed from the herd. Not
surprisingly, this announcement generated fierce opposition and the events
that followed were a virtual carbon copy of 1990. Once again the pro-goat
lobby greatly outnumbered those in favour of a cull by shooting. The local
press and Welsh Television channels soon picked up on the controversy and
there were headlines like, "PROTESTERS BLAST PLAN TO CULL GOATS BY
THE BULLET", and 'QUEEN URGED TO BACK CULL FIGHT'. "AMERICAN'S
PLEA TO SAVE GOATS" was one particularly astonishing caption, which
came about as the result of a visit to Llandudno by a very forceful young
American lady. On her return to Michigan,
Meg Wnuck sat down and wrote a pithy letter to the press, in which she
commented that "These beautiful animals embody the strength
and spirit of the Orme. Their shy respectful demeanour is charming. Why
anyone would wish to upset nature's balance is beyond comprehension ".
I think that this says it all.

There were many more well phrased
letters, which concisely, and without undue sentimentality, expressed the
views of most of the inhabitants of Llandudno. What concerned those who
wished to protect the goats, was the fact that no recent tests had been
carried out to ascertain the state of health of the animals. Nor had there
been any goat studies since 1993, when another student had briefly
continued the investigations. As a result of the letters and a petition
signed by very many sympathisers, the will of the majority eventually
prevailed. At a full meeting of the Conwy Borough Council on 7th
November, 1996, it was decided that no goats were to be shot unless they
were sick or injured.

Over a period of almost a hundred
years, these animals have existed virtually in isolation, and have evolved
into the unique breed they now are. A comparison with the original Windsor
herd shows many distinct and
important differences. The Great Orme Goats are of a far heavier build.
Their coats are less shaggy, and their horns longer and more massive. As
previously mentioned, a few of the goats have dark, facial marks. Bryan
Pinchen describes this as, "a black triangle beneath the
eyes to the mouth". The reason for these variations is not
exactly known, but it is possible that they arose as a result of the
release of domestic goats into the herd, despite the management policy of
the Mostyn Estate Company, who tried to maintain a pure strain.

Once again the shouting has died down,
and the Great Orme Goats, unaware of what might have been their fate,
continue to wander placidly over the old sheep walks, happy in their
environment and giving pleasure to many. Long may they do so.

Reproduced from the
booklet
'Aliens on the Great Orme' by Eve Parry

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